Just as the local foods movement is growing legs in the Midwest, a key piece of infrastructure is struggling.

Many small poultry processing plants have closed, in large part because of challenges finding laborers and making a profit. Without the plants, small farmers say they won't be able to provide meat to local grocery stores and farmers markets.

In Iowa, poultry growers this year got an unexpected, and unwelcome, surprise right during poultry harvest time -- one of Iowa's three state-inspected poultry plants shut down.